Developing and Sustaining Critical Reflection in Teacher Education

Abstract

Smyth provides background informa tion on the emergence of reflectivity as a conceptual thrust in teacher education. He also discusses some of the impedi ments to empowerment that teachers and teacher educators confront as they attempt to implement critical reflection in their curricula. Smyth concludes that if teachers (and teacher educators) are going to uncover the forces that inhibit and constrain them, they need to en gage in four forms of action with respect to teaching. These "forms" are charac terized by four sequential stages and are linked to a series of questions: (a) de scribing (What do I do?), (b) informing (What does this mean?), (c) confronting (How did I come to be like this?), and (d) reconstructing (How might I do things differently?).

Student teachers’ perceptions of feedback as an aid to reflection for developing effective practice in the classroom

“…Pupil feedback is also an area which students need to recognise as an important lens through which to view their practice. A more systematic approach to garnering learner feedback may support the development of greater reflective skills, and enable students to describe, inform, confront and restructure their teaching (Smyth, 1989). It is intended to explore different types of feedback explicitly with future cohorts of teaching students in order that they may fully exploit the potential of the use of different types of feedback to direct their reflections, as an integral part of their practice, rather than as a separate process.…”

“…However, all the students who were interviewed talked about different methods they had used to obtain feedback from the pupils, demonstrating that they were using pupils' responses as a means of identifying issues and informing their subsequent planning (Smyth 1989). The feedback could be classified in two ways: explicit feedback, where the student asked the pupils to respond non-verbally, verbally or in writing, and implicit feedback, where the student used observation to assess pupils' learning.…”

“…As a result, the students described using greater 'reflection in action' during lessons towards the end of their placement, noting those pupils who participated and appeared engaged and those who did not. They were able to use their greater awareness of pupil involvement to assess whether learning intentions for the lesson had been fulfilled and then used their assessments to reflect on subsequent strategies for improving their practice (Smyth 1989). This implicit feedback played a large part in their reflections 'on action' and subsequent discussions with their mentors 'for action' in succeeding lessons.…”

“True to Myself”: Transforming Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices

“…Rather than a focus on purely evaluative evidence, practitioner-derived knowledge must be considered trustworthy and relevant in research (Lerman, 1994;Smyth, 1989b). This study intended to value practitionerderived knowledge.…”

A formação do professor de Matemática, apoiada pelas TIC, no seu estágio pedagógico

“…Para ultrapassar tais dificuldades, Smyth (1989) sugere a realização de perguntas de índole pedagógica: (i) Descrição: o que faço? O que penso?…”